If Sakura hadn't been taking so much pleasure in tormenting him before, she would have felt pathetic for going to see Sasuke so often; now that he'd admitted that he was awake, she no longer had an excuse to give herself (or anyone else for that matter) for going to sit with him for hours on end.

It was just as well, she supposed. She'd been shirking a large portion of her regular hospital duties to spend so much time with him--irresponsible, she knew, but this was a special occasion, and besides that, she hadn't been asked to look at anything worse than a couple scraped knees and a sprained ankle since she'd gotten back from that last mission. (And she was quite sure that those patients would survive, though judging by their tears and the intensity of their wails, they had seemed to think otherwise.)

On the other hand, she sighed, rubbing her eyes and looking up from her latest pile of paperwork, spending so much time with him might not be the best thing for my sanity…

The past few days really had been incredibly frustrating. Half the time he almost seemed normal, like the same cold, self-absorbed Uchiha Sasuke who had left on his quest for vengeance ten years ago, and the other half, he was completely and utterly mad. During these strange spells, his eyes would glaze over, and he would murmur all sorts of nonsense. He didn't seem to know where he was--actually, he didn't really seem to care--and he didn't recognize her, or Naruto, or anyone else, though it was more like he didn't realize that they were even there. Seeing him in that disjointed state made her blood run cold; she wasn't used to seeing Sasuke out of control, at least not in that particular manner.

What on earth happened to him to put him in this condition? Sakura wondered, but she'd had little luck thus far in getting any potentially useful information out of Sasuke himself, even when he was in one of his increasingly rare rational moments. If he did happen to be lucid when she went in to check on him—even if her visit had a purely medical motivation—he just glared sullenly at either his hands or the floor, though she was sometimes privy to that withering expression as well. His responses to her various questions were terse and irritable, and he never seemed to stop glowering at her as she asked them.

Perhaps her little hand-holding trick had gotten to him more than she'd thought.

She glanced at the clock and sighed as she slowly got to her feet. It was time to check on him again.

At least it's an excuse to get away from this paperwork for a while…wow, I'm really starting to sound like Tsunade-shishou now, she thought ruefully as she made her way down the corridor and up two flights of stairs to the Uchiha's room.

She shook her head. Normally paperwork didn't bother her all that much; she knew that the current situation with Sasuke was to blame for making her so tense and unusually restless.

Well, which is it going to be this time, crazy or moody? Sakura wondered tiredly as she mounted the final set of stairs. There didn't seem to be any discernible pattern—so far as she could tell, his sanity came and went as it pleased, and the likelihood of finding him in possession of it was about as definite as the outcome of a coin toss.

Stepping into the room, she noted his unnaturally blank face—crazy it is, then—though she still greeted him as brightly as ever: "Hello, Sasuke-kun! How are you feeling?"

She'd asked him the same question when she'd come to check on him a few hours ago, but since she doubted that he was even aware of her presence in his current state, she didn't suppose it really mattered; he hadn't answered the question before anyway, other than with the customary dark glare and a slight twist of his lip.

This time he replied by simply looking up with wide, vacant eyes that never quite seemed to focus on her, and Sakura shuddered a bit as she checked his few remaining bandages.

His gaze is so…empty…

"You're nearly completely healed, Sasuke-kun! Isn't that good news?" she said aloud, forcing a cheerfulness and levity into her words that she didn't feel; had he been in his right mind at the moment, he would have seen through her false tone in an instant, but as it was, he merely continued to stare up at her unseeingly. "Can you even hear me, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura said with a sigh, her affected brightness slipping away to be replaced by the helplessness and despondency that she really felt.

His dark, blank eyes slid away from her and slowly he turned his head to look out the window. "The only thing with any color is the sky…" he said, his voice low and detached.

Frowning slightly, Sakura leaned towards him, trying to catch his eye. "Sasuke-kun, what are you talking about?"

"...Everything else is the color of death," he went on in that same dead, distant tone; he didn't seem to have heard her question. "The sky stole the life from everything else, drew out the blood, and now wears it proudly as it watches the world lie beneath it, dying, bleeding…"

Concerned, Sakura went around to the other side of the bed, scrutinizing his face, though what she was searching for she didn't know; but whatever it was, she was disappointed--his face was as blank and expressionless as ever, his gaze trained in sightless fascination on the clear (and to her view) blue sky.

Her frown deepened. What on earth is that supposed to mean?

"Sasuke?" She waved a hand in front of his eyes in another attempt to make him look at her; he didn't even blink. "Sasuke!" Finally admitting defeat, she stepped back with a growl.

Most frustrating patient EVER.

Sakura gave a tired sigh and shook her head, leaving the clearly unbalanced Uchiha to stare vacantly out the window.

On returning to her office, Sakura had torn into her paperwork with a vengeance, determined not to allow anything distract her from finishing every last chart, record, and report as quickly and methodically as she usually did.

Unfortunately, she'd only gotten a third of the way through the rather sizeable stack when there was a knock on her door.

"Come in," she called absently, her mind still focused on the chart she was currently filling out. She glanced up distractedly as her door slid open and managed a quick smile for the woman who entered. "Hello Shizune-san!"

"Hello to you too, Sakura-chan, " the dark-eyed woman said, returning her smile. "Busy as usual, I see."

"Heh, always." Giving the heap of untouched paperwork before her a mournful glance, she turned her full attention to the woman before her. "What brings you here, Shizune-san? You look healthy to me, so Tsunade-shishou must have sent you."

"Yes, she did. She wanted me to give this to you." The older medic-nin reached into one wide sleeve and pulled out a scroll. Sakura gave her a questioning look as she accepted the proffered scroll, but Shizune just shrugged and gestured for her to open it. With a shrug of her own, Sakura did so, and found herself reading Tsunade's quick, untidy scrawl:

Sakura:

Congratulations. Since so much of your time has already been dedicated to this end (and don't think I haven't noticed), I have decided to assign you a special mission: you are to care for and aid the recovery of Uchiha Sasuke. Until he can be pronounced completely healthy in both the physical and the mental capacities, he will henceforward be solely your responsibility.

As he is not thought to be particularly dangerous, you are to assist him in any way possible. You are of course expected to report anything that he says, while sane or otherwise, that could prove to be advantageous in our continued search for Orochimaru and the few remaining members of the Akatsuki.

I know that things have been rather slow at the hospital of late, so I am requesting that you make this mission your primary focus; most of your other regular duties will be distributed among the other medic-nin (Shizune will be looking after most of your paperwork), though you will of course be notified if anything serious comes up and your considerable skills are required once more. You will be permitted to serve your night shifts, and will remain on call according to your regular schedule.

Otherwise, however, you are to spend your work hours in caring for and helping Uchiha Sasuke recover his mind, or trying to find a way to restore it medically. (I will send you some books that I have on the subject; perhaps you can find something in them that I overlooked.)

To put it plainly, your mission's goals are as follows:

1) Determine what happened to Uchiha Sasuke to place him in the serious medical condition in which he was found,

2) Determine the cause and severity of his mental instability, and

3) Determine a course of treatment and carry it out as best you can.

My only suggestion concerning this matter is to take him to the places that you visited often and to have him spend time around people who knew him and were close to him—particularly Naruto and yourself, though I suppose Kakashi might count as well. Hopefully spending enough time with him and taking him to these locations will trigger a reaction of some sort that might help him fully regain his sanity.

Good luck, Sakura. If anyone has a hope of curing him, it's you.

Even though she'd finished reading, Sakura continued to stare down at the scroll for a long moment, lost in thought. To be honest, she was rather surprised that Tsunade was doing this--was the Uchiha clan really that important to Konoha?--and she wasn't entirely happy with the assignment either. Sasuke's erratic behavior was quite frustrating, and neither side of his currently dual personality was particularly pleasant (in fact, she was starting to think she might prefer him crazy).

And yet...he was her friend. She owed it to him to try, at least.

"Well?" Shizune pressed, looking at Sakura expectantly.

Sakura sighed and closed her eyes, slowly crushing the unwrapped scroll in her hands into a hopelessly mangled heap. "I accept."

Sakura spent the following weeks taking Sasuke to various places around Konoha. They visited every possible place that she could think of where they'd spent any considerable amount of time as a team, and even a few where they hadn't, but nothing seemed to trigger any sort of response from Sasuke other than boredom and deep annoyance (when he was mostly sane), or blank stares and mumbled cryptic phrases (when he was not at all sane).

At first Naruto had often come along with them--particularly on the days they visited Ichiraku--and Kakashi had even come along once (though Sakura suspected that really he'd just happened to run into them, and had decided to tag along), but after two weeks of nothing more than vacant looks, or else constant animosity from Sasuke, even the energetic blonde had become a little less enthusiastic about Sakura's "special mission". Nonetheless, he stubbornly continued to show up for their daily "outings" until a rather lengthy mission of his own forced him to give it up, at least for a while.

With Naruto gone, Sakura found that she could focus more closely on her patient, though at times his perpetual dispassionate attitude wore her patience perilously thin; and if she was going to get anywhere with this case, she had to focus. Still, Naruto's bright, energetic presence had worked as an effective counterbalance for the Uchiha's cold reticence, and more than once Sakura found herself wishing that the blonde bombshell was there to break an uncomfortably long silence.

By the end of the third week, a feeling of defeat had begun to settle around Sakura's shoulders: no matter what she tried, nothing seemed to trigger any real, noteworthy response.

She'd taken him to the bridge where they'd often waited for hours for Kakashi-sensei to arrive for their training sessions; all that he'd done was stare moodily down at his wavering reflection and block out her talk of the old days.

She'd taken him to Training Ground Three, where they'd officially become genin--the first place that Team Seven had worked together, essentially the beginning of everything. Their acceptance of each other, their lives as true shinobi, their bond of friendship, all three had begun at that very spot...and Sasuke showed not a flicker of interest in the place.

She'd taken him to Ichiraku numerous times (due to Naruto's insistence), as well as every other restaurant, tea house, or food stand that she could think of that they'd visited more than once back in their old Team Seven days. Sasuke had scarcely touched most of what was placed before him, though Sakura tried to recall what he'd always ordered (and since she'd been practically obsessed with him back in those days, more often than not, she could).

She'd even taken him to the high chain-link fence surrounding the Forest of Death, but even that had received little more than a cursory glance followed by a cool, resentful stare for Sakura. She noticed, however, that his left hand unconsciously moved to the back of his neck, as if just being near the place where he had first encountered Orochimaru caused some sort of reaction from the cursed mark still plainly visible on his pale and otherwise perfect skin.

No matter what she tried, nothing seemed to work. (In fact, so far the biggest reaction he'd had to anything was when Ino had spotted them in the street on the way back to the hospital and had rushed to "glomp" her old childhood crush; his response had been a surprisingly forceful "GET OFF!")

Her most recent attempt had been a picnic on one of the grassy hills around Konoha, something they'd done several times as a team, and something that Sasuke had always seemed to enjoy in his quiet, reserved way.

The whole thing actually seemed to be going unusually well--Sasuke was lucid, yet he hadn't glowered or snapped at her once the entire day, and she'd actually gotten a faint smile out of him once or twice with her recollections of various amusing situations that they had found themselves in, most often due to Naruto's (at that time) incredible stupidity. Sasuke had also seemed to enjoy the meal; usually he just picked at his food, but this time he'd eaten his entire share, and some of hers as well when she offered it to him. (She felt particularly smug about this since she'd made the entire meal herself, though she had actually been a bit surprised that everything had come out so well: as a rule, she wasn't really much of a cook, but how wrong could you go with tamagoyaki and onigiri, after all?)

Everything had gone perfectly until they were both lying on their backs staring upwards at the clouds passing overhead.

"That one looks like a shuriken, doesn't it, Sasuke-kun?"

"Hn."

"And that one looks like...it looks kinda like a rabbit, see the ears and the tail? And right above that there's a...hmm..." She squinted at it and turned her head a bit. "I think it looks a little like a tree..." Sasuke made no reply this time, but Sakura pressed on regardless. "That one that I said looked like a shuriken before looks like a sheep now...and the tree is starting to look more like...hey, it looks kinda like the Uchiha clan symbol now, like a paper fan. Don't you think so, Sasuke-kun?" she asked, twisting around to look over at him with a smile. She was surprised to find that his eyes had narrowed, and his face had taken on a mixture of pain and regret as he stared up at the drifting clouds slowly swirling above them.

"…If only I could close the sky…" he murmured absently, prompting Sakura to take a closer look at his eyes; sure enough they were glazed and distant, as cloudy as the blue dome arching overhead.

"Why would you want to do that?" she asked carefully, propping herself up on one elbow to get a better look at him. When he was in one of these moods, she had found that if she asked him about what he'd said at just the right moment, he would usually answer her. She saw it as something of a breakthrough--at least he was responding to her while in that strange, incoherent state--though his replies usually made little more sense than the statement she'd asked him about in the first place.

"The sky is the color of eyes," he whispered, his troubled expression deepening into something akin to horror. "…His eyes…and...my eyes…" His hands suddenly flew to his face, fingers pressing frantically into the skin around his eyes. "My eyes, I can't close them…it's the sky, they're stuck in the sky!" His fingers flexed and he dragged them sharply downwards, leaving several surprisingly deep gashes; but Sakura, who was instantly at his side, caught his wrists and pulled his hands away from his face before he actually managed to claw at his eyes, which seemed to be his true intent. "Let me go!" he snarled, trying in vain to twist away from her.

"No."

"I have to close my eyes! If I do, then he won't want me anymore, and we'll be safe. He'll just leave us alone! Let me go!" he shouted, redoubling his efforts to free himself.
Had he been in his right mind, he would have realized how futile his actions were. "No," Sakura repeated calmly, easily keeping him pinned down, and inwardly thanking Tsunade once again for teaching her the monstrous strength technique.

He continued to strain uselessly against her for a while, then his struggles subsided; thinking he'd given up, Sakura slowly began to relax her grip when Sasuke gave a sudden, violent sideways jerk. Surprised, she lost her balance, falling forward on top of the once again wildly thrashing Uchiha, momentarily too surprised to effectively apply her chakra. As she recovered herself and struggled to subdue him once more, several strands of her long pink hair slipped over her shoulder and brushed against his face; instantly he froze. Slowly he raised a hand, his wrist still firmly in her grasp, and loosely twirled a single strand around one finger; then with a sigh he went completely limp, arms falling lifelessly to his sides.

Sakura hesitated, not entirely convinced that he wasn't faking again, but when he gave no further signs of movement, she released his wrists and pulled back, though she remained close by just in case.

She found she needn't have worried, however; Sasuke stayed flat on his back, staring fixedly up at the slowly deepening blue sky, and he did not move again until the cloud-kissed cerulean had faded into a deep, star-pricked indigo and she told him that it was time to go, hauling him to his feet and guiding him carefully back to the hospital.

Even though he had made a complete recovery--physically, at least--he was still staying in his original room in the hospital. Sakura didn't really like the idea of keeping him there, but she knew that his behavior was far too unpredictable for him to be allowed to live on his own--he was crazy after all, and heaven knew what he might do if no one was watching him (as their most recent outing had demonstrated quite well). The bottom line was that he was currently unfit to live by himself, and that left very few alternatives.

Even if he had offered to take in his former student (which he hadn't), Sakura thought Kakashi-sensei was just a little too busy (and irresponsible) to handle this sort of thing; and though it might have been convenient, Sasuke certainly wasn't moving in with Sakura herself. Her apartment was small enough as it was, and with the state he was in, she honestly doubted if she could stand dealing with him ALL the time. It would be like bringing her work home with her--she would just end up babysitting him all day, every day, and regardless of their history, she knew she was not up to the task. She also didn't feel like dealing with all the gossip that doubtless would have sprung up all over Konoha as a result, or the royal fit that her mother would have pitched when she found out that her 'little girl' was living with a man, even if it was just to make sure he didn't seriously injure himself.

Naruto had quickly volunteered to let Sasuke stay with him, but Sakura had just as quickly vetoed that one—the blonde's apartment was nearly as small as her own, and with all the missions he'd been going on lately, he didn't spend all that much time there anyway. (And when he was in Konoha, he was usually to be found in one of three places: the training grounds, Ichiraku, or the Hyuuga manor…and not necessarily in that order.)

So that left the hospital, and like it or not, Sakura reluctantly had to admit that it was really the only logical place for the decidedly unstable Uchiha to stay.

When they arrived back at the hospital, she found Naruto waiting for her in Sasuke's room, dozing off in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs, still wearing most of his ANBU uniform as well as all the sweat and dirt he had acquired during the mission. He must've just gotten back--didn't even take the time to shower or change...typical Naruto, Sakura thought with a smile as the blonde gave a quiet snort, blinking sleepily as she and Sasuke entered the room.

"Hey," she said, shooting him a warm smile as she guided the disinterested Sasuke over to his bed; he allowed her to pull him along, following her listlessly and not even sparing a glance for the blonde man seated on the other side of the room who he had once called his closest friend.

"Hey Sakura-chan," Naruto replied with a sleepy grin. He rose and stretched languidly before sauntering over to stand beside her, watching her help the apathetic Uchiha into bed. "No changes, huh?" he asked quietly as she pulled off Sasuke's shoes and drew the covers up over her vacant-eyed patient.

Like a mother caring for a child, he couldn't help but think as she gently brushed a strand of hair out of the Uchiha's dark eyes.

Sakura gave a quiet sigh and shook her head. "Nothing worth mentioning." Looking up at him, she managed a weak half-smile. "Come on. I'll give you your post mission check-up so you can go home and change."

"Wrong!" he said, following her out of the room and shutting off the light as he went, pausing to call back a clearly facetious "Sweet dreams, Sasuke-chan!" before closing the door and running after his pink-haired friend. "You give me the check-up so I can take you out to Ichiraku for supper!"

"Asking me out again, Naruto?" she asked with mock severity. "What would Hinata-chan say?"

He ruffled her hair playfully as he fell into step beside her, grinning at her indignant squeak of protest as she knocked his hand away. "Ah, she doesn't mind, you know that. She trusts me."

"Hmm, and here I thought Hinata-chan was smart."

"Keep it up and I'll make you pay for supper, Sakura-chan."

"Heaven forbid," she chuckled, smoothing her hair down again. "I don't think my wallet could take that kind of hit, even if it is just ramen. How many bowls are you up to now?"

"Seven," he stated proudly as she led him into her office and sat him down on the bed.

Sakura shook her head--she was stuffed after just one of the huge bowls, and Naruto had always eaten two even when they'd been younger. Where does he put it? she wondered as she quickly gave him the necessary once-over, running a critical eye over his well-toned and (thankfully) largely uninjured body. Hinata-chan certainly got lucky, she thought with a small grin as she healed a couple minor cuts and bruises on his toned arms and muscular back.

"Finished," she said, making a few final notes for the report she'd have to write up later, stepping away and turning her back to him as he slipped his shirt back on.

"Great!" Naruto said, hopping up and grabbing her hand to practically drag her out the door and down the hall. "Let's go!"

Sakura let out a long sigh as she settled herself on the stool beside Naruto, earning herself a questioning look from the blonde.

"Tired?"

"Just a bit," she mumbled, slumping forward to rest most of her upper body on the countertop. "Aren't you? You just got back from a mission, after all."

"Nah, my mission was booooring," he said, childishly drawing out the 'o', his face displaying a matching pout. "I would rather have been here with you and Sasuke. What'd you do today, anyway?"

"I took him into the hills for a picnic and some cloud watching," she said, smiling as Naruto's pout intensified; he'd liked their Team Seven picnics just as much as Sasuke. "He seemed so normal today, I thought he might actually be...you know, getting better...and then he suddenly went into 'crazy mode' again, as you saw for yourself." She sighed again, resting her head on the blessedly cool countertop. "I don't know what to do, Naruto...I just don't know if there's any way to help him—"

"Don't give up."

She raised her head to find him looking at her, determination alight in his blue eyes, his expression unusually stern. "Huh?"

"Don't give up on him. Like Tsunade-baa-chan said, if anyone has a chance of helping him, it's you." His hard expression melted back into his usual warm smile. "So don't give up."

"I won't," she said, her voice echoing the determination that she had seen reflected in his eyes moments before, and she felt a confident smile stretching across her lips. "Not ever."

"Now that's my Sakura-chan," he chuckled, ruffling her hair again and laughing a bit as she yelped and swatted at him in mock-irritation.

Sakura was nearly half done with her meal, and Naruto was well into his third bowl of ramen when she asked him about his mission again.

"Not 'llowed t' shay much, uf courshe—" he said, giving her a clear view of his mouthful of half-chewed noodles.

"Of course," Sakura cut him off quickly, hoping to give him time to finish chewing and swallowing. "But you said it was boring...why was that?"

Naruto scowled and finished off his bowl before answering, "Ah, I got paired with Neji again."

Sakura blinked at his disgruntled tone. "What's wrong with that? I thought you liked Neji-san."

"I do when he's not being an arrogant bastard," the blonde said petulantly, his face temporarily brightening as he eagerly slid his fourth bowl, which Ayame had just placed before him, a little closer. "And he's always an arrogant bastard on missions. He talks like he knows everything, just because of those eyes of his...and worst of all, he always steals all the action!" Scowling once more, he shoved about half the noodles in the bowl into his mouth at once, then went on, "He shees 'em 'n' getsh there firsht 'caush uf thosh eyesh, 'n' I jusht haf t' shtand back 'n' watch—"

"—Or you might get caught in the Kaiten Spin." Sakura rolled her eyes. "Mouth closed when you're chewing, Naruto."

"Shorry." He swallowed with a clearly audible gulp before starting in again, "Plus, he's been hanging around you a lot lately, if you haven't noticed."

Sakura shrugged, mildly surprised that Naruto had noticed, and even more surprised that he had taken offense. "So what? We're friends. What's wrong with hanging out with him sometimes?"

He made a face. "It's weird."

"I hang out with you all the time and that's not weird, so why is it weird for me to hang out with Neji-san?"

Naruto's eyes narrowed a bit. "Well, it's just that, if I didn't know any better, I'd say—"

"I hardly think that you could say much more than you already do, Naruto," a smooth voice suddenly cut in.

Sakura turned her head to see Neji standing behind them, a small, satisfied smile gracing his lips. Unlike Naruto, the Hyuuga had obviously cleaned himself up on returning from their mission, and was dressed once more in the traditional style that his clan favored.

Naruto growled something unintelligible (and most likely unprintable) and turned back to his ramen, clearly bent on ignoring the other man.

Mildly ashamed of his impolite reaction, Sakura shot him a dark look and punched him hard in the side (nearly causing him to spit his current mouthful back into his bowl) before beaming up at the unperturbed Hyuuga. "Hello, Neji-san!" she said brightly. "You look well."

"As do you, Haruno," he replied with a slight bow, eliciting another muffled growl from the direction of a certain blonde ninja.

"Your mission went smoothly, I take it?" Sakura went on, ignoring her old teammate's blatant irritation. "I couldn't get much out of Naruto about it, other than the fact that you 'hogged all the action' again."

"My deepest apologies," Neji said dryly. "Next time, I'll be sure to let some of them almost kill us so he can have a chance at them."

Naruto continued to sulk, finishing up his fourth bowl with an inordinately loud slurp and starting in on his fifth.

"How is Uchiha doing?" the Hyuuga inquired, ignoring the blonde in turn and focusing his attention solely on Sakura.

"He's the same," she said, gratified that he'd remembered to ask. He always did, though, whenever she happened to run into him, and she appreciated the fact that he actually seemed to care about her reply.

"Healthy though?"

She nodded.

"Good. I'm certain he'll come around eventually. You are the one taking care of him, after all."

Beside her, Naruto made an unmistakable gagging noise.

"Why don't you join us, Neji-san?" Sakura asked pointedly, sliding a threatening glare at her obnoxious best friend, whose short gargle of protest cut off instantly when he saw the look she was giving him. "Naruto's paying," she added, giving the glowering blonde a nasty smile.

"How very kind of him," Neji smirked, knowing full well that her invitation was an attempt to both to make up for and retaliate against the Kyuubi container's poor behavior. "Thank you, Haruno. Don't mind if I do."

Now that I think about it, the pink-haired kunoichi thought as he settled himself on the stool beside her and placed his order, Naruto's right--I have seen quite a lot of Neji-san lately. I wonder why? Of the various possibilities that wandered across her mind, one in particular caught her attention, bringing her thought process to a grinding halt. Oh, no...surely not. He couldn't--he couldn't possibly... Her wide-eyed gaze darted towards him quickly, then away just as rapidly. Shaking her head at her overactive imagination, Sakura busied herself once again with her food. It can't be anything like that. He's probably just concerned about me because we're on the same ANBU squad, that's all, she thought, sneaking another quick sideways glance at the tall Hyuuga. I mean, there's no way that he could... She attempted to take yet another surreptitious look at the man beside her only to find him looking straight at her. Damn it, I always forget that he can see everything! A sudden, guilty blush threatened to rise to her cheeks beneath his calm, unreadable gaze, but she stubbornly fought it back, determined not to divulge her embarrassment at being caught staring once again by the handsome man beside her.

"Was there something you wanted, Haruno?"

"N-no," she quickly averted her gaze back down to her bowl, feeling her cheeks warm slightly as she lost her battle with the blush.

"Are you certain? That was the third time you've looked at me like that in the last five minutes." Sakura choked quietly on her ramen, evoking a low chuckle from the Hyuuga genius. A small smile turning the corners of his perfect mouth, he leaned closer, which did nothing to help her fight back her quickly-deepening blush, and murmured in a low voice. "Or did you forget what I said about staring, Haruno?"

"N-no…" she said again, keeping her head down; he was so close, she could feel his warm breath whisper across her flushed cheek.

Is he...flirting with me?

Slowly she turned her head to look at him, putting their faces mere inches apart, her eyes searching his face for his intent, her own clearly displaying her slight confusion. Those blank eyes were so hard to read...but the laugh lines crinkling around them and the smirk on his lips weren't.

He's teasing me!

But before she could really decide how she felt about that (Inner Sakura was currently vacillating between raging indignation and a highly unusual bashfulness), his ramen arrived, and he calmly removed himself from their unusual proximity, turning his full attention to his meal. Sakura, however, continued to stare at him uncertainly for a moment, feeling bewildered and a little off-balance.

She allowed her eyes to trace his handsome profile once more before turning back to her own meal with an inward sigh. Heh. Yeah right, Haruno...keep dreaming.

"What did you dream about last night, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked quietly. She was on call tonight, so she was performing the usual nightly rounds, and since Sasuke was the last patient on her list, she didn't feel at all guilty about lingering a bit in his room.

"...Nothing."

"It wasn't nothing--you were thrashing around, and you...you were calling for your mother..."

He glared at her, as if his restless sleep was somehow her fault, then looked away sharply. "It's none of your business."

She gave an exasperated sigh and shook her head. "Sasuke-kun, if you don't tell me about your dreams, then I can't help you—"

"I don't want your help."

"But—"

"Leave me alone."

With quiet growl she turned and left the room, closing the door a bit more forcefully than was necessary. She knew she wouldn't get anything else out of him anyway when he was in one of those moods, so there was really no reason to stay.

His nightmares must be pretty bad if just mentioning them causes that kind of reaction.

Nightmares. Yet another issue that the unfortunate Uchiha had apparently developed. Though Sakura hadn't observed many of them firsthand, she suspected that he'd had them every night since they'd found him: when she came to check on him early in the morning, she never failed to find him twisted up in the bedclothes, his brow covered in sweat, muttering unintelligibly as he tossed and turned in his sleep.

As if the unpredictable bouts of madness and the constant mood swings weren't enough, Sakura snorted as she settled herself at the desk in that floor's nurse's station to read through yet another book Tsunade had sent her about mental instabilities commonly found in young, primarily male, ninjas. This is the third one this week. Where does she find all these? Sakura herself had checked out everything she could find on the subject from the Konoha library, but there hadn't been much, and she had yet to find anything remotely useful. Most of the books she'd found were either basic guides for discovering the presence of said illnesses (she'd returned those--she was quite certain that Sasuke was mentally unstable), or else techniques to help the affected person and the ones close to them deal with the illness (Sakura had returned all of those books as well, but she was beginning to rethink that move).

She'd been reading for a little over two hours when she caught herself nodding off. Can't have that, she told herself sternly, giving a mighty yawn as she stood to stretch her cramping muscles. I'd better get some tea or something, or I really will fall asleep. Working with Sasuke must've drained me more than I thought... Yawning again, she made her way down the corridor.

She'd just reached the stairwell when she the screaming started.

"No,no, no, I won't live this day again! I won't, I won't!"

Everything was black and white, nightmare images that were burned into his brain. He was the only one moving, the only one still alive, and no matter where he ran, no matter how quickly he moved, he always found himself surrounded by nothing but a darkness as thick and black as pitch and more of the endless, brutally slaughtered bodies.

Even the blood was black, and it was everywhere...spilled out on the ground, splattered up on the buildings, and—oh God, his hands, his hands, they were covered in it—

"No!" he nearly sobbed, "no, this isn't what I wanted! I won't go back to this! Don't, don't make me--no! Stop it, stop it, stop--!"

"Sasuke!"

Firm hands were shaking him, and a familiar voice called his name, jerking him awake.

"Sasuke! Wake up! You're having another nightmare!"

Bewildered, he looked up into calm, caring green eyes, and he felt his emotions wavering on the edge, threatening to push him over into the familiar disjointed madness once again. "Sakura…" he whispered, for once not caring that fear shone plainly in his eyes, only half conscious that her hand was wrapped firmly around his own. "I don't want to dream that dream ever again...I don't want to go back there." He suddenly groaned and doubled over as if in pain, eyes closing tightly; he clutched her hand almost desperately as he half-gasped, "I run and I run and I run, but they always die…they're always dead before I can do anything, before I can stop him…"

"Shh, it's okay...it was just a dream, you're awake now," she murmured, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly with her free hand. "I'm here, don't worry--you're not alone."

"...But it wasn't just a dream, Sakura." The eyes he slowly turned up to her were full of pain, but unmistakably clear; he was fully in control of himself...for the moment at least. "It really happened." His hand was trembling in hers. "It happened...and it was my fault..."

She shook her head bemusedly. "Sasuke-kun, I...I don't understand..."

All at once his eyes narrowed, and his face hardened back into its usual implacable mask. "Trust me...you don't want to."

He gave her hand one final squeeze, and then he was gone again, lost once more in the twisted maze of his own mind.

Sakura watched with a fascinated sort of horror as the rationality slowly faded from Sasuke's eyes, leaving them with the by now quite familiar blank expression. "Sasuke," she murmured sadly, running gentle fingers through his surprisingly soft bangs, brushing them away from his face.

His eyes gradually focused on her face once more, though as she expected, the spark of lucidity that she so desperately searched them for was totally absent. "Kaa-san..." he whispered, eyes widening slightly. He reached out a tentative hand to gently grasp a lock of her long hair, letting it slip slowly through his trembling fingers as he lowered his hand once more.

Sakura had decided to let her hair grow out again about two years ago. She had liked her short, spunky haircut, but after being mistaken for a fifteen-year-old more times than she cared to admit, she had decided that enough was enough. She knew that she looked older with her hair long, and besides, she'd kind of missed it. She couldn't know, however, that the way she wore her hair now was, as it had been before, almost exactly like Uchiha Mikoto's, and in the darkness of the hospital room, its pale pink hue was dulled enough to at least faintly resemble a deep black...the hair color of Sasuke's mother.

"Kaa-san," he said a bit louder. "I...I'm sorry..."

"Sasuke," Sakura began quietly as his hand tightened convulsively around her own, "Sasuke, I'm not..."

"I'm sorry!" He let out a muffled sob, burying his face against her and wrapping his arms around her comfortingly warm and solid form. Sakura blinked in surprise at his sudden embrace, but did not move to pull away; she could feel his hot tears already soaking through her shirt. "If I'd only been there...if I'd only been stronger, then maybe...maybe..." He tried to pull her closer, and Sakura hesitated for a moment before allowing him to do so, seating herself on the edge of his bed. "I'm sorry!" he suddenly burst out once more. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you…it's my fault…it's all my fault, mine, mine!"

"It wasn't your fault," Sakura found herself murmuring, instinctively returning his embrace, rubbing one hand across his back soothingly. "There was nothing you could have done."

"No! At the very least, I could have died protecting you...but he robbed me of that, too. He robbed me of everything I ever had, everything I ever wanted."

"You still have your friends." She wasn't really sure that he could hear her, but he'd been responding thus far, so she figured it was worth a try. "And you still have your memories."

"Empty. Memories are as empty and hollow as song...everyone sings the words, but no one believes them. They're swallowed and then spit back out, used up and then abandoned." He shook his head mournfully. "There's no worth to such things."

"What about your friends, then?" Sakura persisted, ignoring his senseless rambling and focusing on trying to truly reach him.

"They don't understand...they just don't understand."

"Maybe they would if you'd talk to them about things more often."

"They can't understand," he said a bit more insistently.

"How do you know?"

He didn't seem to have a reply for that, though she supposed that perhaps he might not have heard her at all; she couldn't be entirely certain one way or the other.

The ensuing silence stretched out for so long that Sakura was almost certain he'd fallen asleep when she heard him muttering again: "I found my own way, but it was already too late...all the clocks stopped long ago, and now I'll never catch up...and now their death is my fault as well."

"It was not your fault, Sasuke." Sakura felt like she was reasoning in circles, like she was doing nothing more than repeating herself, yet none of what she said seemed to sink in no matter how many times she said it. Maybe he isn't listening after all... "Why do you insist on blaming yourself for something that was out of your control?"

"Because it really was my fault this time. Even you can't know, Kaa-san...at least I hope you don't...but I'm sorry for it, I wish I could take it all back...God, why didn't he kill me? I thought he would, thought I would be dead like I deserved...then none of this would have happened..."

"Sasuke, you should try to sleep now," she said with a sigh, starting to pull away. She was getting tired of debating his past--which she honestly knew very little about--with him; no matter what she said, or what assurances she gave, he didn't seem at all convinced or moved in the slightest.

"No," he whimpered, his arms tightening around her, and he raised his head to look up at her. "Don't...don't leave me...please, don't leave me."

Sakura stared down into his dark, pleading eyes, and found herself softening beneath the desperation in their beseeching gaze. "I won't," she said at last, tightening her own embrace just slightly. "I promise I won't ever leave you."

"But you already did..." he murmured sleepily, resting his head against her chest.

"No...you're the one who left, Sasuke-kun," she said softly. Looking down into his half-closed eyes, she thought she saw a momentary flicker of genuine recognition, but it was gone before she could be sure.

"Sorry..." he whispered, then his eyes drifted shut; within moments his breathing was soft and steady, and Sakura knew that he was asleep once more.

She waited awhile before attempting to extract herself from his embrace, hoping to allow him to settle more soundly into the arms of sleep; but at long last she started to move, slowly easing herself out of his grasp. She was nearly free when he let out a quiet moan, tugging her back and clasping her to him more tightly than before.

Sakura froze, again waiting until his breathing had evened out, then tried to pull away once again. As before he let out a muffled groan, and tightened his grip even more.

This pattern was repeated a few more times, but Sakura never seemed to get any closer to freedom; in fact, she realized with an inward groan, she had actually lost ground--she was closer to him than ever, her last attempt having resulted in him nearly pulling her all the way up onto the bed beside him.

She gazed down into his face, which looked nearly angelic in its current level of peacefulness, and breathed a quiet sigh. Well, there was nothing for it--like it or not, she was stuck there for the night. She might as well get comfortable.

It was very cramped and uncomfortable for two people to share one of the narrow hospital beds, but Sakura had experienced worse, and if it helped Sasuke sleep, then she supposed it was worth it.

Moving slowly so as not to disturb him again, Sakura carefully swung her legs up onto the bed, then eased both Sasuke and herself backwards until they were both fully reclining; the side of his face was still pressed against her breastbone, his arms still encircling firmly her, his face still serene and utterly satisfied. She smiled gently, finally allowing herself to relax a bit, keeping her arms wrapped comfortably about his shoulders and resting her cheek on the top of his head.

Sakura had dreamed of falling asleep in the strong arms of Uchiha Sasuke for years; now, at long last, it was finally happening, though the circumstances were quite a bit different than what she had always pictured in her mind's eye. So he thinks I'm his mother...great, just great. Not exactly the type of relationship I had hoped we'd have, but I suppose I should just take what I can get for now. It's not like he'll remember this in the morning anyway...

The morning.

Clenching her teeth, she bit back a groan, praying that she'd wake up before anyone found them this way...most of all Sasuke himself. I'll just have to hope that he wakes up crazy tomorrow. She winced inwardly at the thought of the alternative. If he'd reacted so badly to her holding his hand, she didn't even want to think about how he'd react to finding her sleeping with him.

Maybe I just shouldn't fall asleep...

That seemed like the best idea, considering the position she was in, but to her lasting dismay she found it surprisingly comfortable, curled up with him as she was; before she knew it, she felt her eyelids dragging insistently downwards. She tried to push her increasing drowsiness aside, but their combined body heat in that tiny little bed made that task next to impossible. Before long, she drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep, arms still wrapped protectively around the Uchiha heir.

Sasuke passed the rest of the night peacefully, and if he dreamed, it was only about pleasant things.